Counting Our Tomorrows
by singing-along
Summary: Regulus is six and Sirius is seven when Mother decides that they are getting too old to share a room. Seven times there was "see you", and one time there was no "goodbye".


Disclaimer: I don't own anything you recognise.

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i.

Regulus is six and his brother has just turned seven when their parents decide that they are getting too old to share a room. On the night of Sirius' birthday, Mother levitates all his things into the room upstairs, away from the room they have shared since Regulus can remember.

"Go on, Sirius!" Mother barks, gesturing impatiently toward the open door. "We don't have all night, for Merlin's sake. You have to move. How else will either of you be independent?"

Sirius stands beside Regulus at the door of the room they shared, arms tense by his sides, biting a shaky lower lip. Regulus hopes he isn't going to cry, because Sirius is his elder brother and Sirius never cries, and if Sirius cries now Regulus is most certainly going to lose it as well, and it'll be embarrassing and oh so pathetic. He can already feel something starting dangerously in his chest, building behind his eyes and nose because no, Sirius cannot move to another room. Regulus gets terrible nightmares sometimes and if Sirius goes away he won't be able to be there to tell him that it's all fake, and the icy skeletons will come alive and grip his arms with their icy and slimy hands and drag him under icy water —

"Sirius Black!" Mother shouts threateningly. She proceeds to pull Sirius up the stairs to his new room, and Regulus panics then. He bites his lips and stares at Sirius. Now he's really going to cry; he can feel it. He wants to beg Sirius not to go, but the words are stuck at his throat and his heart is pounding and he's suddenly so scared —

"See you, Regulus," Sirius says softly as Mother pulls him along. "It's okay. 'S not like I'm gone forever or anything."

(They end up seeing each other the next morning — of course. He slowly manages to deal with his nightmares by himself.)

—

ii.

Regulus is ten when he follows his parents to King's Cross to bid Sirius farewell as he boards the Hogwarts Express. Sirius is eleven and bouncing in excitement and anxiety. Mother has smoothed his collar over for about a million times by now, telling him not to play pranks and to — of course, as though she even needs to say it — get Sorted into Slytherin house.

At eleven o'clock, Sirius boards the train, dragging his trunk behind him.

"See you, Regulus!" he calls, giving Regulus' hair one last ruffle. Then, more quietly, "I'll miss you lots."

He waves at Regulus as the train departs from the station, until the Hogwarts Express turns a bend and he's out of sight.

(Sirius ends up getting Sorted into Gryffindor. Regulus has never seen Mother so angry, and Mother is the type to get impatient over the tiniest crease in her dress robes. Father does not talk much, but there is something closed and dark in his eyes as he surveys Sirius' name on the family tree, something perhaps even more frightening than Mother's open rage. Regulus just stays in his room as much as he can.)

—

iii.

Things become different at home since Sirius got Sorted into Gryffindor. These days, his parents keep giving him talks about honour and pride and the purity of blood, and what he, as a Black, is expected to do. He understands it all perhaps faster than his parents expected him to, hates how things have become so complicated.

Sirius writes letters to him, in the first term of school, at least. He talks a lot about his friends — there is James who has wonky glasses and comes up with pranks Sirius finds wicked cool, and Peter who is chubby and loves food and has the odd spark of genius when the time calls for it, and Remus who is quiet and bookish and who seems like someone Regulus would b great friends with. He describes about the wonders of Gryffindor house, a common room that has comfy armchairs and warm fires, a room that's in general ten times cosier than creepy old Grimmauld Place, housemates that are cool and way more fun than the Pureblood playmates they had when they were younger.

Sirius ends each letters with a See you, Reg! because his friend Peter apparently forbade him to write Bye. Bye apparently gives the idea that you won't see the other person again, and See you sounds much nicer? Regulus finds it kind of dumb, and he's sure that Sirius does, too, but Sirius' words are full of protective amusement when he writes about his friends and Gryffindor house and Regulus can't really understand how this all happened.

He replies some of the letters, simply ignores the rest.

(He gets Sorted into Slytherin when it's his turn to go to school, of course, and Sirius wouldn't look at him for a week. He wonders if Sirius actually hoped for a different outcome.)

—

iv.

Regulus is thirteen and Sirius is fourteen when they make the odd peace for a round of broomstick racing in that field at Aunt Druella's private estate in the Christmas holidays. Regulus enjoys the feel of a broomstick, loves the wind and flight and pure exhilaration that comes with being airborne. It's cathartic when he needs it to be — calming and meditative, almost. Sirius is, of course, a natural at flying — among everything else, his pride fighting tooth and nail for a victory. They eventually tie in the race and Regulus smirks as Sirius glares.

Afterward, Mother orders them to get washed and cleaned up in time for a family dinner. Sirius gives an lazy wave as he disappears into the bathroom.

"See you, Reg."

"Bye."

At this, Sirius stops, leans against the door frame, pretends to clutch his chest and doubles forward in mock agony.

"Bye? You don't want to see me ever again, Regulus? My own baby brother doesn't want to bloody see me again!"

Regulus just rolls his eyes, picking up a clean shirt and heading to his own bathroom.

(It ends up becoming a game of theirs. Regulus thinks it's ridiculous as hell, but the confused look on Potter's face after Regulus says the over-exaggerated bye and snorts after speaking with Sirius is certainly amusing.)

—

v.

Regulus is fourteen and his brother is fifteen when Sirius stops opening the letters from his family.

"It's not like I asked for the job, you know… Come on, just humour the poor owls, at least."

It is particularly awkward to stand here, in the middle of the corridor leading to the Gryffindor portrait hole with Potter, Lupin and Pettigrew just a few feet behind, handing Sirius a letter from their mother. Pettigrew is staring at him with fright, Lupin with curiousity and Potter with defiance.

Sirius stands stiffly before him, a few inches taller. Up close, his Gryffindor scarf, draped about his neck, looks almost unnervingly red. His face is stony, eyes cold as he stares at the letter clutched in Regulus' hand.

"They asked you to be the good little messenger. Whatever. Just hand it over."

He leaves with his friends without another word, does not say See you or Goodbye or anything in between. Regulus remembers how he and Potter and the rest are like during meal times and the occassions Regulus have seen them together. They are close-knit, the four of them, joined at the hip, laughing that loud, Gryffindor laugh in unison and seemingly able to red each other's minds.

(Sirius once said that his friends were his family. It takes Regulus a while to realise just how much that means.)

—

vi.

Regulus is fifteen and his brother is sixteen when their parents ask Sirius to join the Dark Lord. He does not even recall the specifics, only that one moment, they are sitting stiffly in the cold dining room, and the next, Sirius is storming out of the room and slamming the door behind him so hard one of the crystals in the frame actually falls off.

Regulus goes up to Sirius' bedroom to find his brother tearing through his room, hurling his belongings into the open trunk at his feet. His body curves in taut, dangerous lines as he attacks his items with a furious vigor.

"I'm leaving," he tells Regulus curtly, voice shaking with anger. "They've really gone and done it. _I've had fucking enough_."

With that, he shoves Regulus out of the way and storms down the stairs. Regulus' father is yelling, his mother's screeching loud enough to wake the whole city, and Sirius is howling in wordless, inarticulate fury.

When Regulus reaches the hallway, Sirius is already halfway out of the door.

"See you around, Regulus," he spits, and in his rage his face is transformed into something terrible, something grotesque and terrible and ugly. He slams the door behind him.

Regulus' father retreats into his study, muttering in fury. His mother is hysterical and braced against the wall, gasping and clutching her chest. Regulus goes to bed early and stays awake for hours, punching his pillow as though it's Sirius' goddamned face and thinking No, I don't ever want to see you again.

(He does see Sirius around in school, of course. He pretends he doesn't, as though that changes anything.)

—

vii.

Regulus is freshly seventeen (his ex-brother's eighteenth birthday is in a week, not like he's supposed to care) when he receives the Mark.

He has to grit his teeth because the spells smouldering over his skin, pricking into his flesh hurt like hell. He supposes that it is all very honourable and that this will be a moment he will treasure for the rest of his life as a servant of the Dark Lord, but as smoke hisses up from his wrist and the snake tongue — so much uglier up close — lolls almost comically out of the skull, it just feels absurd. Beside him, though, Severus Snape is staring at his own Mark like it's some sort of brilliant treasure, and hooded figures around them are clapping slowly in congratulations.

Regulus supposes that his cousin Bellatrix is one of those masked people. After all, Bellatrix was the one who brought him here, to the Dark Lord's feet with lips against the Dark Lord's robes — metaphorically or otherwise. Absurdly, he thinks of Bellatrix when they're younger, before Sirius has started school yet. Bellatrix liked to bore him and Sirius to death whenever she came around to Grimmauld Place with her pretentious talk of politics and wizard supremacy and things they did not comprehend, yet.

Sirius finally cracked one day and somehow managed to convince Regulus to help him pour piss into Bella's makeup bag just to watch her shriek. _(Come on, Reg, it'll be fun, I swear. She isn't looking now — quick! Okay, okay, we'll do it later. Just don't chicken out at the last minute. See you in her room after dinner with the stuff we need or I'll have your goody little head.)_

(It's funny how quick things can change.)

—

viii.

Sirius is twenty when he's missed all the chances to even say a proper goodbye because his brother is fucking dead.

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